Tag: Layoffs

Manila, Philippines – Media company ABS-CBN has announced the retrenchment of 100 of its employees, accounting for the company’s 3% of its workforce.

The company has confirmed said news to MARKETECH APAC when reached out, citing the global decline in pay TV business, as well as the TV industry being hurt by lower consumer spending translating into lower advertising spends.

“We are committed to providing those affected with full benefits and support, and are deeply grateful for their many years of service to the company and to the public,” ABS-CBN said in a press statement.

Nonetheless, ABS-CBN has highlighted how its TV ratings continue to improve, as well as its film studio Star Cinema producing two box office-hitting titles ‘Unhappy for You’ and ‘Rewind’. 

It has also highlighted that its music business has gotten a strong boost from the popularity of girl band BINI–which has been notable lately for their brand collaborations with local brands like Jollibee, Modess, Surf, Sunsilk, amongst others.

ABS-CBN has struggled to maintain its revenue since its franchise on free TV and radio has been revoked by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. Following that, the network has laid off more than 4,000 employees as it affected multiple verticals of the media company.

In 2023, its radio channel TeleRadyo also ceased operations, with its 630 kHz frequency taken over by a new ‘TeleRadyo Serbisyo’ done in partnership with ABS-CBN and Prime Media Holdings.

The media industry in the Philippines has been experiencing difficulties as well, which resulted in shutdowns like of CNN Philippines in January this year.

Singapore – TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees globally, including a significant number in Malaysia, as it shifts towards increased use of AI for content moderation, the company announced on Friday. 

Sources previously told Reuters that over 700 jobs were cut in Malaysia, though TikTok later clarified that fewer than 500 employees in the country were affected.

Most of the impacted employees worked in content moderation and were informed of their layoffs via email on Wednesday, according to anonymous sources who were not authorized to speak publicly. 

In response to media inquiries, TikTok confirmed the global layoffs, stating that several hundred employees would be affected as part of a broader plan to enhance its moderation processes.

It is also planning more retrenchments next month as it looks to consolidate some of its regional operations, one of the sources said.

“We’re making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

TikTok combines both automated tools and human moderators to review content on its platform. Parent company ByteDance, which has more than 110,000 employees in over 200 cities worldwide, is reportedly planning further layoffs next month as it consolidates some regional operations, according to one of the sources.

Singapore – Multinational company Dyson has laid off several employees in its main headquarters at Singapore, and follows a recent job cut by the company involving 1,000 employees in Britain.

Dyson has confirmed the news to MARKETECH APAC when reached out to.

“We constantly evolve the composition of our teams and take steps to ensure we have the right skills in the right places. Our ambitions in Singapore remain unchanged, and we anticipate that we will continue to grow here in the medium term,” a company spokesperson told MARKETECH APAC.

Dyson didn’t comment further on the number of employees affected by the layoffs, or which departments the employees are from.

The layoffs are done despite the local employee headcount growing to 35% by 2023, and is expected that Dyson’s total footprint in Singapore will grow in the medium term. Moreover, Singapore–being the company’s headquarters–sits at the centre of Dyson’s research and advanced manufacturing ecosystem.

Following this update, the United Workers of Electronics and Electrical Industries (UWEEI) has expressed disappointment with the company’s one-day notice regarding the retrenchment exercise. For Patrick Tay, executive secretary at UWEEI, this left insufficient time for meaningful discussion between both parties. The union has since then escalated the matter to the Ministry of Manpower.

“The union understands that the affected workers fall outside its scope of representation under the Collective Agreement with Dyson. Nonetheless, UWEEI stands ready to support affected workers,” Tay said in a media statement sent over to MARKETECH APAC.

With this, UWEEI is teaming up with NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) to assist affected workers for new employment opportunities, job matching, and will support them with career coaching and job training, where needed. 

UWEEI members may also tap on the Union Training Assistance Programme (UTAP) fund to offset training courses should they require skills upgrading. It will also assist members who may face financial hardship via their various assistance programmes. 

The union has also reminded companies to observe the guiding principles outlined in NTUC’s Fair Retrenchment Framework (as of 24 July 2020) and the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment, and are necessary to ensure that a fair and balanced retrenchment exercise has been undertaken by companies.

“Unionised companies should work with their unions in a timely manner to ensure that a fair and equitable process is carried out to safeguard the interests of all workers, especially our Singaporean core,” Tay added.

Singapore – Popular fast fashion retailer SHEIN has laid 17 employees in Singapore, as confirmed by the company to MARKETECH APAC. This is despite reported plans that the brand is aiming for an IPO at the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

In a statement by a SHEIN spokesperson, it had stated that the employees come from the company’s IT research and development (R&D) arm, and were notified on September 25.

“As SHEIN continues to grow its operations in Singapore with a newly expanded office to accommodate its increasing workforce, the company has also restructured the Singapore arm of its IT R&D team, relocating some positions to other markets as part of its ongoing strategy for continued global expansion, localisation and to drive efficiency. A total of 17 employees in the Singapore office have been affected and were notified on September 25, 2024,” the spokesperson told MARKETECH APAC.

While it did not detail particulars on retrenchment packages to the employees, the spokesperson said that it has committed to support the affected employees throughout the transition period.

“We are committed to working with the affected employees throughout this transition period, providing necessary support and assistance, as well as the opportunity to apply for alternative roles to support localisation efforts in other markets,” the spokesperson added.

SHEIN is reportedly aiming for a London IPO after a planned New York IPO in 2023 came under fire, with both Republicans and Democrats opposing the public listing.

Despite SHEIN being one of the most popular fast fashion brands globally–estimated to have a US$22.7b annual revenue in 2022 according to Statista–the brand itself has been repeatedly criticised over its production practices that promote wastage and pollution, as well as various claims of plagiarised designs of its items that are derived from popular brands.

In August 2023, SHEIN had signed a strategic partnership with SPARC Group, the parent company of Forever 21, in a bid to expand SPARC Group’s distribution of Forever 21, adding value and variety for SHEIN’s extensive customer base.

Australia – Pedestrian Group, the media company owned by Nine Entertainment, has announced that it will cease licensing several overseas titles amidst a wave of job cuts and a greater focus on its own wholly-owned brands. The titles that will be affected include Vice, Gizmodo, Refinery29, Kotaku and Lifehacker.

“We’ve made the tough decision to focus on our wholly owned Pedestrian brands where we control the strategy, the content, the product, the sales and the outcome – the entire business. This will have an impact on roles within the group and I appreciate the uncertainty this change creates, so we will be in contact immediately with those people,” according to an email from Matt Rowley, CEO of Pedestrian Group, towards its staff

Rowley also blamed the licence partners facing financial headwinds and instability in the corporate world, as well as the overall decline of the advertising market and the rise of social media platforms for news.

Moreover, he also said that he would also exit Nine as a result of the changes after the transition period, with a new CEO to be appointed.

The shutdown of these publication titles in Australia follows news of 40 out of 95 jobs being cut off from Pedestrian Group, as well as 90 jobs that were let go from Nine’s publishing division announced last month.

Mike Sneesby, CEO of Nine Entertainment, told staff recently that the decision had been made due to the “economic headwinds” facing the media industry and “tough decisions” would be made by mid-July to save the company US$30m.

This news also comes following a wave of media-related layoffs and shutdowns, including of VICE Media, Time, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Forbes, and Business Insider. In APAC, CNN Philippines recently shut down due to financial losses, effectively laying off its entire workforce.

Singapore – Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is set to relocate its Asia headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore, resulting in an unspecified number of journalists to be laid off. This after consideration by the US publication following the move from other foreign firms to move out from their headquarters from the Chinese financial hub of Hong Kong.

In a letter seen by AFP, WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said, “Some of these changes are structural: We are bringing together our business, finance and economics coverage. Some are geographic: We are shifting our center of gravity in the region from Hong Kong to Singapore, as many of the companies we cover have done.”

She also added, “Consequently, some of our colleagues, mostly in Hong Kong, will be leaving us. It is difficult to say goodbye, and I want to thank them for the contributions they have made to the Journal.”

It is worth noting that WSJ has APAC bureaus in Tokyo, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Taiwan and Sydney.

WSJ’s new move is part of a worrying rise of media-related layoffs and restructuring, the most recent being of Yahoo Singapore laying off staff in favour of syndicated content moving forward.

Singapore – Global media and technology company Yahoo in Singapore is reportedly laying off all of journalists and social media executives, according to a recent report from The Edge Singapore. In total, 17 staff members will be leaving the company’s digital news publication arm by May 7.

According to staff familiar with the matter, affected staff will receive slightly more than two weeks’ pay per year of service. It was also reported that affected staff members were met with a HR representative, with Simon Wheeler, Yahoo’s senior director of content, Australia and Southeast Asia, reportedly being also present in those meetings.

When reached out for a statement, a Yahoo spokesperson told MARKETECH APAC, “We are shifting our editorial strategy to better align with strategic priorities for Yahoo Singapore. Readers can expect to continue seeing the content they most regularly engage with and enjoy. We remain focused on delivering a diverse selection of high-quality and engaging news, lifestyle and finance content, from local and international sources.”

It is worth noting that through this move, Yahoo Singapore will now move towards focusing on publishing syndicated content from its publication partners such as TechCrunch, AFP News, HuffPost, amongst others. Previously, Yahoo SG catered to a mix of syndicated content as well as original reporting from its journalists.

This is not the first time Yahoo announced a slew of layoffs, specifically those in the digital news segment. In 2023, Yahoo eliminated around 1,600 jobs — or 20% of its total workforce then — as part of its efforts to restructure its advertising tech division and phase out its supply-side platform. It also laid off around seven journalists in its Singapore office in 2022.

United States – Global technology company IBM has announced that is laying off staff across its marketing and communications teams, as previously reported by CNBC.

According to media reports, the IBM layoffs were made by the company’s chief communications officer Jonathan Adashek in a meeting that only lasted seven minutes amongst those in the marketing and communications teams who will be affected.

The layoffs reflect IBM’s rapid move to replace nearly 8,000 jobs in the company with AI, as well as massively upskilling all of its employees on AI. Its CEO, Arvind Krishna, previously told CNBC that it will be cutting 3,900 positions back in January 2023.

“In 4Q earnings earlier this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single digit percentage of IBM’s global workforce, and we expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with,” the company stated.

IBM joins a slew of tech companies making significant layoffs this year including Cisco, Amazon, Snap, Okta, PayPal, and Microsoft.

Singapore – Vice Media Group has announced that it will cease publishing new content on its main news site Vice.com, as well as announcing more layoffs across its staff, according to an internal memo Bruce Dixon, group CEO at Vice Media Group, sent out across its employees.

According to the memo, Vice Media will look into partnering with established media companies to distribute their digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as the company fully transitions to a studio model.

“After careful consideration and discussion with the board, we have decided to make some fundamental changes to our strategic vision at Vice. We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously,” Dixon said.

While he did not specify how many employees, Dixon said that the company will be ‘eliminating several hundred positions’. He also noted that Refinery 29, Vice’s standalone website focused on young women stories, will remain as a standalone business. The memo did not mention, however, on the current standing of Virtue, Vice’s in-house creative agency.

“I know that saying goodbye to our valued colleagues is difficult and feels overwhelming, but this is the best path forward for Vice as we position the company for long-term creative and financial success. Our financial partners are supportive and have agreed to invest in this operating model going forward. We will emerge stronger and more resilient as we embark on this new phase of our journey,” he added. 

The company had previously announced bankruptcy earlier in 2023, and was acquired by investment companies Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital for US$350m. Prior to this, it had also announced several layoffs, including the entirety of its newsroom team in Asia-Pacific.

Aside from Vice Media Group, the media industry has been taking a hit this year, with media entities such as Time, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Forbes, and Business Insider all announcing staff reductions earlier this year. In APAC, CNN Philippines recently shut down due to financial losses, effectively laying off its entire workforce.

Singapore – Global home appliance manufacturer Electrolux has announced that it is shutting down its regional office in Singapore and is aiming to relocate its APAC and MEA commercial leadership to Thailand, MARKETECH APAC has learned recently.

In an exclusive statement sent by Samar Refai, communications director, APAC & MEA transformation at Electrolux, she stated that with this office closure, there will be several regional employees who will be laid off. However, they did not specify the number of employees who will be affected. The company has promised that the affected employees will be offered the maximum level of support during the upcoming transition period.

“With a newly established commercial set-up for APAC & MEA, Australia and Thailand are becoming key hubs for Electrolux Group in the region. Having the regional capabilities & competencies within these hubs ensures proximity to our customers, consumers, manufacturing sites, R&D and Innovation centers,” Refai told MARKETECH APAC.

Refai also assured that despite the imminent fate of its Singapore office, Electrolux will continue to drive its important business in the APAC&MEA region focusing on growth.

“This decision has no impact, whatsoever, on the operational business & trade relations, in any of Electrolux Group’s markets in APAC & MEA, including Singapore Sales office in Braddell,” she also added.

Electrolux has recently recorded a dip in its global sales, according to its recent year-end report for the fourth quarter of 2023. In it, the company noted that organic sales decreased by 0.8% mainly driven by negative prices but also lower volumes.

“In three out of four business areas we managed to navigate this challenging market environment in a fairly good way, even if the weak market demand resulted in an earnings decline for 2023 in our European and Asia-Pacific operations,” Jonas Samuelson, president and CEO of Electrolux stated.

Electrolux’s layoffs also join other major companies who have made significant cut-offs to its Singapore offices, including Unilever and Lazada.